


still having dreams

by nightswatch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Dreams, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 22:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8596786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightswatch/pseuds/nightswatch
Summary: Dex keeps having dreams about Nursey. Embarrassing dreams.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt I got. An anon asked for Nursey/Dex and dreams :)

Dex knows that technically he has no control over the things his brains throws at him in his sleep. That doesn’t keep him from wishing that he did, though. Because this _issue_ he’s been having is getting completely out of control. It’s the middle of the night and Dex is wide awake. Actually, he’s keeping himself awake because he can’t go back to sleep, back to dreaming about… _that_.

See, he’s been having dreams. Bad dreams. Horrible dreams. Not exactly nightmares, though. It’s just… Nursey. Who is a walking nightmare, actually. He’s all of Dex’s bad dreams stuffed into one person.

Dex doesn’t know how to deal with this.

Of course he’s noticed that Nursey is, objective speaking, not bad-looking. There’s not a single person on the planet who hasn’t noticed. Dex just wasn’t aware how much he’d noticed. Going by how his mind loves to dwell on Nursey while Dex is asleep, he’s noticed _a lot_.

With a quiet groan, he rolls onto his stomach, fingers clenched in his pillow.

“Don’t think about him,” Dex whispers to himself. “Just stop thinking about him and you won’t dream about him again.”

This is what it’s come to. He’s talking to himself. In the middle of the night.

That dream left him reeling, though. Dark skin, warm against Dex’s, hands wandering, twisting into his hair, breath tickling his skin, Nursey moaning his name.

Dex wants to hit himself in the face. _Stop thinking about it._

He squirms against his mattress, which doesn’t make things better in the slightest. He doesn’t even know if that’s what Nursey would actually sound like if Dex ever got his hands on him. Dex doesn’t want to get his hands on him anyway. He doesn’t want Nursey. God. It’s just those dreams. They’re messing with his head, that’s all.

Nursey’s hands probably aren’t as soft as they were in Dex’s dream.

_William Poindexter._

Nursey’s voice probably wouldn’t sound that wrecked in reality either.

_For the love of God._

He needs to think of something else. Homework. Laundry. Hockey. Nursey, grinning at him from across the ice. Nursey, wiping his face with his jersey. Nursey, tripping over his own shoes in the locker room.

Yeah, no, this is definitely a nightmare.

Nursey isn’t even that attractive. That boy trips all over himself all the time. And he constantly says the most ridiculous crap, like, you couldn’t even tell that he’s an English major, honestly. And he wears that snapback like the biggest douchebag on the planet. And then he always loses all of his stuff. And he flicks cereal at Dex’s head during breakfast. None of that is in any way attractive. Nursey is a disaster.

A disaster with really nice lips.

Dex drags his pillow over his head. He doesn’t want to think about Nursey ever again. He doesn’t want to _see_ Nursey ever again.

Which is obviously not going to happen because they have practice tomorrow and then they’re hanging out at the Haus with Chowder. Dex already promised that he’d be there and Bitty is going to make dinner and Dex can’t get out of that without a good excuse.

And, sure, “I keep having dreams about Nursey, you know, _embarrassing_ dreams,” might actually be an excellent excuse, but that is not a sentence that Dex will ever utter out loud. So he’s going to have to show up at the Haus.

Maybe he can somehow get through tomorrow without looking at Nursey.

Dex groans. Of course he’s going to have to look at Nursey at some point. It doesn’t help that Nursey is really hard to look away from in general. Dex is so frustrated; he wants to punch a wall.

*

When Dex wakes up after dreaming about Nursey’s lips on his for the third time this week, he’s pretty much ready to grab a shovel and dig himself a grave.

*

“Murder me,” Dex says as he slinks into the kitchen.

Bitty is there, flitting about, obviously stress-baking. Dex was hoping he’d be here. There’s something about being around Bitty that calms him down, even when Bitty is caught up in a baking frenzy and only shoots him a quick smile.

“Just a second, Dex,” Bitty says.

“And then you’ll murder me?”

Bitty raises his eyebrows at him and briefly abandons his pie lattice to look at him. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Dex says, almost reflexively.

Bitty isn’t buying it, but he turns back to his pie, finishes it quickly and sets the timer once it’s in the oven. “Come over here.”

Dex shuffles over to the counter with a sigh.

“What do you wanna make?” Bitty asks.

“What?”

“We’ll bake something.” Bitty tugs off his apron and hands it to Dex. “More pie?”

“Okay,” Dex says, holding up the apron, unsure if he’s actually allowed to put it on. He does help Bitty sometimes, but he has no hopes of ever reaching Bitty’s level. “More pie sounds good.”

Bitty doesn’t ask him what’s wrong and Dex can’t even begin to explain how much he appreciates it.

“Gently,” Bitty says when Dex starts working on the dough.

Dex tries.

And then Nursey comes walking into the kitchen, because obviously Dex’s day just _has_ to get worse. Nursey mumbles a quiet hello, not even looking at them because he’s digging through his bag. “Has anyone seen my headphones?”

Bitty shakes his head. “No, sorry, have you checked–”

“Never mind,” Nursey says and pulls them out of his bag, tangled into one big knot. He’s starting to untangle them and Dex thinks he’s going to have a heart attack if he has to watch Nursey’s fingers prodding and pulling at his headphones for another second.

The thing is, he doesn’t have to keep looking. He could just look away. Except that he _can’t_. Nursey chews on his bottom lip as he tries to figure out the mess that his headphones have turned into in his bag and Dex is mesmerized.

“How does this always happen?” Nursey mumbles and takes his mess over to the table.

“Black bag magic,” Bitty says and gives Dex a nudge. “You done with that dough?”

“Uh, I guess?”

Right now, Dex is done with a lot of things.

*

Dex keeps his eyes on his own stuff in the locker room. He’s trained himself to keep his eyes on his own stuff his entire life. Or, well, ever since he first noticed that his eyes end up following guys rather than girls at an alarming frequency.

Until he came to Samwell, he was convinced that he’d take that secret to his grave. But then he whispered it to Bitty a few weeks ago and Bitty hugged him and thanked him for trusting him and suddenly Dex thinks that maybe he can actually tell people about it. Suddenly saying, “I’m gay,” seems a little less terrifying. It’s still scary. But it doesn’t feel like an impossible thing to say any longer.

He’s taking his time with it, though.

A wet sock hits the back of his neck and he looks around, staring right at Nursey, who’s wearing nothing but his underwear and one sock and Dex is about ready to kill him, because he didn’t mean to _look_. 

“Oops,” Nursey says and cackles.

“Fuck off, Nurse,” Dex grumbles and chucks the sock back at Nursey, grinning when it hits him square in the face.

Nursey laughs and Dex looks at him for another second, which is exactly one second too long, because there are a lot of things you can take in in one second, believe it or not. Dex has definitely thought about running his fingers along the dark lines of Nursey’s tattoo and he wasn’t even asleep.

He can practically feel the tips of his ears turning red. His cheeks are burning. He needs to get a grip on this, whatever _this_ is. Dex risks another glance over his shoulder just when Nursey trips over his bag. Chowder only barely manages to catch him.

Seriously, Nursey is a disaster.

But a disaster with really nice hands.

*

“Nursey, it’s time to go home.”

“I can sleep here,” Nursey mumbles, his eyes slipping shut.

“Here?” Dex asks. “On the porch?” He severely regrets ever uttering the words, _Yeah, I’ll make sure that Nursey makes it back home all right_. But he promised Bitty and even if he hadn’t promised, he’d hardly leave Nursey outside the Haus. It’s way too cold to sleep outside. It’s way too cold to _sit_ outside for longer than a minute.

“Chyeah, right here. ‘m tired.”

“Okay,” Dex says and grabs Nursey’s arm, pulling him to his feet, making sure he puts on his coat. This is going to be just like carrying a sack of potatoes from here to their dorm. Great fun. “Let’s get you home, yeah?”

Nursey lets himself be dragged away from the Haus, his arm slung around Dex’s shoulders while Dex has his arm firmly wrapped around Nursey’s waist, so he won’t fall flat on his face.

This isn’t the first time he’s dragging Nursey home after a kegster. Sometimes they stay at the Haus, claim a spot on the couch, or find some other place to sleep. Dex has slept in the kitchen; he’s slept on Chowder’s floor. He wonders if they should have stuck around today as well, because Nursey is really, really wobbly on his feet and he’s leaning heavily against Dex, and Dex definitely doesn’t need this right now.

Dex isn’t entirely sober either and his mind is just taking this as an opportunity to let his thoughts run wild. Because Nursey is really close to him and his fingers are curled into Dex’s jacket and Dex isn’t sure how his thoughts jump from this to him wrapping his arms around Nursey and kissing him, but here he fucking is.

“You’re so strong, Dex,” Nursey slurs. His voice sounds rough.

“Shut up,” Dex says, because he can’t deal with this, with Nursey, and with the things he’s saying, and with how much he wants to touch him.

“No, but you are.”

“Whatever.”

“What crawled up your ass, Dexy,” Nursey says. “Are you sad? Why’re you sad?”

“I’m not sad.”

“Grumpy.”

“I’m not.”

“Dex, Dexy, William…” Nursey laughs and pushes his face into the crook of Dex’s neck. “Willy.”

“I hate everything,” Dex says. “Come on, don’t stop walking, we’re nearly there.” Just a few more steps. Then all he has to do is dump Nursey in his dorm room and then he can finally go to sleep and forget this ever happened.  

He pulls Nursey up that one very dangerous step by the door. As he digs through his astoundingly large jacket pockets for his key, Nursey slumps against him, both arms slung around Dex’s neck.

“I’m…” Nursey sighs. And then his face is pressed to the side of Dex’s neck again, stubble scratching his skin. “Tired, Dex. Really tired.”

“I know, and you’ll get to bed at least twice as fast if you let go of me.”

“Can’t.”

“You’re a huge pain in the ass, have I ever told you that?”

“Hm, I love it when you tell me that.” Nursey’s fingers scratch at the back of his head, just the ghost of a touch, fingers slipping into Dex’s hair.

Dex would very much like to drop dead, right here, right now. That’s the only way out of this he can see. Death would be a gift.

He finally, finally finds his key and unlocks the door. He shoves Nursey inside, towards the stairs, up, one step after another, and there aren’t any major injures, although Dex is sure that they’re both going to have a couple of bruises to show for their unsteady ascent.

Nursey is only vaguely cooperative when Dex asks for his key and just hugs Dex for a bit instead while Dex digs Nursey’s key out of the pocket of his coat. Dex should probably be glad that Nursey didn’t shove it into the pockets of his jeans.

Dex tugs off Nursey’s coat and unceremoniously dumps Nursey on his bed.

“Hmm,” Nursey says.

“Shoes,” Dex says.

Nursey half-heartedly pulls at his shoelaces but doesn’t get very far, so Dex takes pity on him and pulls them off for him.

“Night, Nursey,” Dex says.

“Hmmmm,” is the only reply he gets.

Dex feels sluggish and unsteady on his feet as he drags himself to his own room. He fumbles the key into the lock and only kicks off his shoes before he crawls into bed. He struggles out of his jacket, glad that no one can see him right now, and buries his face in his pillow.

He doesn’t fall asleep right away. Instead he thinks about how warm Nursey was, he thinks about Nursey’s lips brushing against his neck, he thinks about how close they were, how nice it felt.

“You’re a fucking idiot, Poindexter,” Dex mutters to himself.

If he has another one of those dreams tonight, he has no one but himself to blame.

*

“Dex, you’re with Nursey,” Lardo says and hands him a key card.

Of course he’s with Nursey. Of fucking course.

Because it’s not torturous enough that Nursey is constantly around and that he’s constantly half-naked and that he’s constantly teasing Dex about one thing or other and nudging him and pinching his cheek and ruffling his hair and laughing. It’s not torturous enough that Dex is having dreams about him all the damn time.

Two days ago he found himself thinking about what it’d be like to fall asleep next to Nursey. Just… fall asleep. What it’d be like to have Nursey curled around him. It’s _mortifying_.

Dex didn’t sign up for this. A year ago he would have sworn that Nursey was the last person on this planet he’d ever end up being attracted to. Well, looks like Dex has never been so dead wrong in his entire life. He hates this. He hates that he caught himself smiling when Nursey was joking around on the bus earlier. He can’t believe that his mind hates him this fucking much.  

Anyway.

So he’s sharing a room with Nursey. That’s fine. They often share a room when they’re on a roadie. So far, they’ve always made it out of it alive.

He’s just going to… not look at Nursey. At all.

Dex makes it through the game. He scores and Nursey hugs him and pats his head and smiles and Dex even makes it through that. They celebrate with the team in Ransom and Holster’s room and he ends up with Nursey sitting next to him and Nursey’s arm around his shoulder.

That’s when Dex realizes that the universe hates him. But he makes it through that as well.

Dex begs off a lot earlier than usual and isn’t at all surprised when Nursey chirps him about it. He flips Nursey off in reply and climbs over Ollie and Wicks, nearly tripping on the way to the door.

He falls asleep almost as soon as he’s curled up in bed. He doesn’t hear Nursey come in.

When he wakes up there are traces of a dream lingering on his mind. It’s early morning and the light in their room is soft and gray. Dex tries to blink away the image of Nursey’s hands on his skin, his touches gentle and sure. He screws his eyes shut and takes a deep breath. It was a _dream_.

Dex could sneak off to the bathroom and take a very, very cold shower before Nursey wakes up. He probably should.

He sits up and rubs his eyes.

“Dex,” Nursey says.

So much for sneaking to the bathroom before Nursey wakes up.

Nursey is still snuggled up in bed, the sheets pulled up to his chin, his eyes on Dex. He doesn’t look like he just woke up.

“Hey,” Dex says and it comes out croaky.

Nursey is staring at him.

“Dude,” Dex says. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Nursey sits up, tugs his fingers through his hair, and scrunches up his nose. “You, uh… you sort of talk in your sleep.”

“I…” Oh, fucking hell. Dex swallows hard. “What did I say?”

“Oh, just… stuff. My name. More stuff.”

Dex doesn’t have to ask what Nursey means when he says _stuff_. He remembers what he was dreaming about well enough; he doesn’t need a reminder. “Oh my God.” He hides his face behind his hands because the floor won’t do him the favor of swallowing him up. “I’m sorry,” he grits out.

He doesn’t know what to do. Damage control? Can he talk his way out of this somehow? He isn’t a talker. This is a fucking disaster.

“Dex,” Nursey says. “It’s chill.”

“It’s not _chill_.”

Nursey sighs and then Dex’s mattress shakes and Nursey is sitting next to him. “If it makes you feel any better… a lot of people have dreams like that.”

“Because you’re just that hot?” Dex mutters.

“I meant, like, in general. Look, I’ve had dreams–”

Dex really doesn’t need to know what kind of dreams Nursey has been having, thank you very much. “Now you’re just trying to make this awkward.”

“No, I’m trying to tell you that there’s no need to be embarrassed.”

“I think I’ll still go with being embarrassed, but yeah, thanks.”

“Dex,” Nursey says. He takes Dex’s arms and pulls his hands away from his face.

Dex stares down at the sheets. “Can we just forget that this happened? I’m sorry, okay? I won’t–” He’ll never look at Nursey ever again.

Nursey shifts closer. “Dex.” His fingers are curled against Dex’s thigh. “Look at me?”

Dex shakes his head. He can never look at Nursey again, except that he wants to look at nothing but Nursey for the rest of his life. He’ll find some way to deal with it. At some point. Hopefully. He wants to run away, but there’s _something_ in the space between them, in those very few inches, that freezes Dex to the spot.

“Do you want to tell me what you were dreaming about?” Dex can feel Nursey’s breath puff against his cheek.

“What are you doing?”

“Dex, come on, just let it go,” Nursey says. “It’s okay, I promise it’s okay.”

Dex looks up because he wants to know what Nursey’s face looks like when his voice sounds that gentle. Nursey’s face is so close, and his eyes are so green, and he looks so _serious_. It’s not the kind of look Dex is used to from Nursey. Not off the ice.

“What did you dream about?” Nursey asks.

Dex bites down on his lip. He can’t even _think_ about it without blushing. “You,” he says.

“Huh,” Nursey says and tilts his head and then Dex leans in because didn’t Nursey just promise him that it’s okay?

Nursey hums when their lips meet, and it really is okay, and Nursey’s hand is warm on Dex’s thigh, and his fingers are wandering into Dex’s hair, pulling him closer. Dex’s heart is hammering in his chest, but it’s okay, because Nursey wants this too. And it’s so much better than all the dreams Dex has ever had combined, it’s so much better than he imagined.

Nursey tugs at his shirt. “Come here,” he says and pulls Dex down onto the mattress with him.

Dex wraps his arm around Nursey, pulls him in, and Nursey comes easily, his nose bumping against Dex’s when he leans in for a kiss. Dex smiles into it.

Nursey reaches out and trails his thumb over Dex’s cheek. “You’ve been dreaming about me,” he whispers.

“Oh, shut it,” Dex says. He doesn’t even want to know how red his face is right now. He nudges Nursey’s side. “You need to brush your teeth.”

Nursey gives him a shove in return. “So do you.”

Dex pulls him in for another kiss instead.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "I am disappeared" by Frank Turner. 
> 
> I'm @zimmermaenner on tumblr if you wanna drop by.
> 
> Kudos and comments are very much appreciated :)


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